Hello Genius, It's Your Weekly Wag!
Dear Wags,
There’s a widely-held delusion that only rubes are vulnerable to conspiracy mongering. They—those Visigoths who swallow tall tales about vaccines, baby sacrifice, and stolen elections—will fall for any old thing. We tut tut as their soft brains are manipulated by a 24-7 mobile disinformation network. Genteel fans of Ulysses, Terry Gross, and Vampire Weekend know better.
A mountain of evidence rebuts this. Michael Shermer has made a career studying how conspiracy lore isn’t fringe but at the heart of human experience. You hardly need swallow a red pill to suspect that secret plots are everywhere. A diversity of Americans buy into absurdities that affirm their intuition and bolster tribal identity. They go for sexy fabrications not because they are gullible, but because invention validates sincerely held belief. Self-deception may be loopy, but it’s comforting. In a chaotic world, conspiracy theories sate our thirst for the mythic.
It does help that actual conspiracies are routinely exposed, though they are seldom as entertaining as fantasy. The stories we tell ourselves, like so many dangerous and addictive substances, are far more entertaining. A princess goes in for an operation, and takes a break from her public duties. We can confine ourselves to a parsimonious press release, or we can invent. How much better it is to imagine convoluted scenarios that confirm a cherished narrative.
Our penchant for rumor was once a guilty pleasure, shunted into disreputable alleys and monetized by scandal sheets. Now we gorge on conspiracies and endlessly feed them. When Catherine, Princess of Wales revealed her cancer diagnosis after weeks of speculation, one speculator of our acquaintance remarked: “I feel like one of those MAGA people. I don’t trust the photographs and immediately assume an official statement is a lie.”
She feels that way because we are made that way. For all sorts of reasons, people, famous and obscure, have a habit of covering up. When they leave a blank space, we merrily fill it in for them. This latest Windsor saga played out in ways that inflamed ancient mistrust. It mapped, rather too neatly, onto a legend in which the heroine is doomed. Even when she tells us otherwise, we prefer our version.
A talent for fiction is only human. Abetted by technology, it happens to be enjoying a golden age. That is one truth we can rely on.
Yours Ever,
From the Game of Thrones Guys
Three Body Problem (Netflix). Master Adapters David Benioff and D.B. Weiss team with Alexander Woo for this deluxe adaption of Liu Cixin’s sci-fi trilogy, which ties China’s Cultural Revolution to the strange deaths of modern-day scientists, which in turn provides clues about a looming alien invasion. Keeping up? Benedict Wong stars as a gumshoe delving into these mysteries, alongside Liam Cunningham, Rosalind Chao, Jack Rooney, and many other worthies, many of them former denizens of Westeros. No expense has been spared. —Arianne Martell
Iron Lady
Shirley (Netflix). Hollywood churns out respectful portraits of Great Figures. Most have all the good intention and subtlety of elementary school biography. Wag Emerita Shirley Chisholm of Barbados and Bed Stuy, the first African American woman to win a congressional seat and the first person of her race to run for president, is too easily obscured by her dignity. She gets more than hagiography from writer/director John Ridley (12 Years a Slave). Dame Regina King gives her characterization fire, while Late, Great Lance Reddick shines as a political advisor. It’s a better than dutiful treatment of a noble life. —Melanie Brown
